2014: The year in speaking out about sexual assault with #beenrapedneverreported

Antonia Zerbisias and Sue Montgomery on how the hashtag that united survivors of sexual assault came to be

Thoughout 2014, sexual assault and the way institutions respond to it captured both headlines and the public consciousness.

Even as brave women were coming forward with their own stories of sexual violence, the same questions that have weighed down progress on the issue persisted: Why did it take them so long to come forward? Why didn’t they report these incidents to police?

As survivors of sexual assault themselves, retired Toronto Star journalist Antonia Zerbisias and the Montreal Gazette’s Sue Montgomery know why women often choose not to report, and they want you to know too.

Though the two only knew one another on Facebook, Zerbisias and Montgomery connected as the Ghomeshi allegations were coming out and started a hashtag on Oct. 30 that would quickly go viral: #BeenRapedNeverReported.

“I was getting increasingly angry as people were saying, ‘why don’t these women come forward? Why don’t they give their names? Why don’t they go to the police?’ And I knew why they didn’t,” said Montgomery.

“It was like a tidal wave. It was trending across canada at 11 o’clock that night, and then by 3 o’clock in the morning it was trending in the U.S. Within 24 hours everybody was writing about it,” said Zerbisias.

“What did this hashtag did was become a kind of tipping point.”

The women say the outpouring was made possible by Twitter, a medium where survivors could take control of their own stories.

“The other thing is in 140 characters you don’t have to give a lot of details, you don’t have to name your aggressor, you don’t have to give a lot of details of what happened, you just put it out there in a statement,” said Montgomery.

The question now is whether the conversation’s momentum can continue into 2015 and whether that talk can translate into action.

“There’s an awareness about it but whether things are changing yet, I think that’s going to take some time,” said Montgomery.